


Fever

by MonstrousRegiment



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fever, Gen, Hannibal-ACCA, Hurt/Comfort, Sickness, needs-some-mormor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1921299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonstrousRegiment/pseuds/MonstrousRegiment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Will,” he says, voice shredded.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>“It’s November third, two thousand thirteen,” Will says, his own throat dry and aching. “You’re in Wolf Trap, Virginia. Your name is Hannibal Lecter.”</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Hannibal is very sick. Will has the chance to help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fever

**Author's Note:**

> This is for needs-some-mormor! You asked for hurt/comfort, porn optional. I was intending to write it but it just... didn't happen that way. I think by the end of it you'll understand why. 
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for donating! It's for a good cause!

There is peace to be found here, ensconced and silenced in the snow-laden forest, the only sound his beating heart and his breath through his nostrils, foaming white in the freezing air.

He crouches, his back against a tree, his knees spread. Pale winter sunlight gleams in the well oiled dark metal of his rifle, gold-and-red like coils of copper against the polished wood of the grip and butt. He follows the smooth lines of the stock to the fine black metalwork, to the muzzle hanging inches from the snow. This isn’t the right way to stalk a stag; still and waiting with his gun aimed down to the ground.

Sometimes he goes out of the house with a rifle and tells himself he’s coming back with meat for him and the dogs, and finds himself instead like this, losing time in the woods in the cold, absentmindedly watching his own breath fog in the air. He hasn’t hunted a single deer like this, which is unsurprising.

He doesn’t black out. But he does lose time.

Doesn’t scare him, though, when the time slips away from him in this manner. He closes his eyes one moment in the snow and opens them again the next and hours have passed him by, but he knows he hasn’t moved. Out here in the snow and silence there’s no harm to be done to anyone but himself.

He hasn’t blinked awake to stare into the muzzle of his own rifle. Not yet. The idea that he might unsettles him, more out of the discomfort or becoming aware of his own self destructive impulses than the idea of the act, itself. He doesn’t think he’d pull the trigger, although they tell him these things are such as you discover once you’re in the thick of it.

The violence that rages inside his skull is muted here, dim, distant. It feels like the snow absorbs it from him. Like soaking up blood. Sometimes he thinks he’ll stay here, forever, and freeze to death calmly in the forest never to be found.

But then who’d take care of his dogs? And so when his toes go numb and his nose starts running from the cold he picks himself up and takes himself back and continues living.

He thinks Dr. Lecter would have a field trip with this. Maybe he’ll tell him one day.

No, he won’t. He knows it’s sick and wrong, but he does it because he finds peace here. If he tells his psychiatrist, Dr. Lecter will understandably point out how wrong it is to do it, and then the next time he comes out here the peace will be shattered into a hundred million shards that will cut into him like guilt. He doesn’t need to be told what he does is wrong; he knows already. It doesn’t stop him—although it should, he thinks.

One of the great many things he should probably stop doing in the name of his own mental health, all of which are equally unlikely to end. Although, to be fair—he _had_ stopped.

At least one of them.

He inhales deeply, filling his lungs with freezing air until his nostrils ache with the cold. Tips his head back against the tree, watches steam escape from his nostrils like smoke from a dragon’s. He’s always liked the cold, he thinks, although sometimes it’s hard to remember what he likes and what he doesn’t. It’s easier here, like this. Alone with the snow.

Movement right in front of him catches his eye, and he lifts his head against, startled.

The stag stares at him. It’s a gorgeous thing; huge and regal and dark-pelted, its horns rising high and elegant, perfectly symmetrical. Its dark eyes study Will for a long moment, almost as though judging his worth. It must find him wanting; it turns his head away, dismissive, and continues to sniff at the snow, moving slowly away.

Will watches him until he’s lost amongst the trees. It never occurs to him to lift the rifle and take the shot. Alone again he takes a deep breath, releases it, and stands.

The trek back to his house takes the better part of an hour, in the company of nothing but his rifle and his labored breathing. The peace of the silent forest still envelops him like a fog by the time he arrives, and his smiles come easy for his dogs as he lets them streak past him out into the field.

Sometimes it feels like the face he wears is a mask of mobile plastic, and his smiles are a grimace no matter how hard he tries to be genuine.

He disarms the rifle and hangs it in the locker, locks it, rests the key on its top. He starts tugging off his winter clothing as he wanders aimlessly to the kitchen, with half a mind to start preparing something hot to eat or drink. On the way he passes by the table and discovers a light blinking on his cell phone. He flips it open as he tugs absently at his scarf, frowning. He hopes it’s not a message from Jack; the mere idea of doing that today starts to dissipate the fog of peace he’s worked so hard to achieve, like fog lights on a car.

It’s not, though. He has two missed calls from Dr. Lecter, one about half an hour ago, one less than ten minutes ago. It’s odd for Dr. Lecter to call him; even odder for him to insist when his first call was missed. Dr. Lecter is as zealous of Will’s privacy and isolationist nature as he is of his own. He wouldn’t insist if it weren’t pressing, and Will can’t think of anything pressing his psychiatrist might need to go over with him.

Unless it’s of a personal matter, Will thinks as he puts the phone to his ear and starts the coffee machine. He has trouble thinking of Dr. Lecter in anything like a personal matter at all, though, him with his well-cut expensive three-piece suits and severely combed back hair—

“Will.”

Will stops what he’s doing, alarmed. Lecter sounds awful, voice raspy and rough, and even his short name sounds like a labored gasp.

“What’s wrong?” he asks as calmly as he knows how, heart racing, already reaching for his winter clothing back.

“My apologies,” Lecter says roughly. His rough voice makes his accent almost unintelligible, and he must be aware of it because he’s speaking slowly and very carefully. “I cannot think of anyone else to call. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No, it’s fine, tell me what you need.”

“I am… I was on my way to Virginia. I passed the exit to Wolf Trap a few miles back. I am—unwell.”

He moves the phone away quickly, but Will can hear him coughing as he hastily wraps his scarf around his neck again, snatching up his car keys.

“What happened?”

“I was sick. I believed it was a mild cold. It’s rapidly worsened, and I am uncertain I… I should not be driving. The fever is…” he trails off, coughs lightly again. It sounds wet and awful.

“A few miles out of Wolf Trap, right?” Will asks briskly as he gestures the dogs inside and locks his front door.

“I am sorry, Will. I know this isn’t—“

“Stop, please,” Will cuts in, sliding into his front seat. “I know for a fact you’ve had to deal with worse than this from me, and that’s just in therapy sessions. I’m on my way. Just stay warm.”

Dr. Lecter coughs again and mutters something before hanging up. It doesn’t sound like English to Will, and he sincerely hopes Dr. Lecter is well enough to remember to speak it to him, because his Lithuanian isn’t so much rough as literally nonexistent. A little French he can field, maybe even a little Spanish, but Eastern European is asking for a bit much.

It takes him twenty minutes to find Dr. Lecter’s car, parked on the shoulder five miles out of the Wolf Trap exit. He parks his car right behind it and waits, but there isn’t any movement in the other car. Heart beating quickly with sudden concern that Dr. Lecter is unconscious, he rushes out of the car and stalks forward to the driver’s door. The windows are fogged up, but he can see Dr, Lecter’s form dimly through the condensation, and he sees him flinch badly when he knocks on the glass.

The door unlocks. Will pulls it open and leans in, concerned.

Dr. Lecter may have sounded bad on the phone, but he sounded a lot better than he looks. His skin, already normally pale, is ashen, and his sharp cheekbones and sunken eyes make him look like a cadaver. Unbelievably the most striking part of this is that his hair is falling softly across his forehead, uncombed, and it makes him look even more vulnerable.

“Sorry to startle you,” Will says softly, wordlessly leaning in to help when Lecter fumbles clumsily with his seatbelt. As he does his face is close to Lecter’s, and the heat coming off of him is disturbing. “Should I take you to a hospital?”

Dr. Lecter swallows with a grimace and shakes his head. “I know what this is. An old illness from my childhood, recurring in times of stress.”

Will’s eyes skitter away from the cut on his lip, the bruises on his cheek from Tobias Budge’s attempt to murder him. Times of stress indeed.

“If you could help me to an inn,” Dr. Lecter says, blinking heavily.

Will scoffs rudely, grasping Dr. Lecter’s arm to help him out of the car. The tall man stumbles once he’s on his feet, and Will gently lets him lean back against the side of the car as he yanks open the back door and pulls out Lecter’s long wool coat and scarf.

“You’re coming to mine. I might not be a surgeon but I can nurse a fever. If you survive my cooking.”

Dr. Lecter swallows thickly. “I cannot keep down any food in this state in any case.”

“Clever dodge,” Will teases, helping the psychiatrist into his coat and buttoning it for him. Lecter is shaking violently, wracked by intermittent shivers, and his hands are clumsy and freezing. “Let’s get you in my car. What do you need me to grab from yours? I’ll have a friend bring your car over to my house later.”

Dr. Lecter turns his face away to cough and docilely lets Will manhandle him into the passenger seat. He slumps there, eyes fluttering, and for a minute Will is scared he’s going to pass out, but Lecter rallies, blinking slowly, frowning.

“My laptop bag,” he says eventually. “Confidential patient files in it. My suitcase in the trunk.”

Will nods and closes the door gently. The laptop bag in the backseat, supple expensive leather soft as butter on his fingers. The suitcase is small, a carryon. Lecter either packs light or wasn’t expecting to stay long in Virginia. He checks to make sure Lecter’s sleek black BMW is closed and then puts both bags in his own backseat. Dr. Lecter is silent, eyes closed, head tilted back against the headrest. There’s sweat gathering in his temples and forehead beneath the fringe of his hair.

Will has never seen Dr. Lecter look anything less than impeccable, unless he counts the time after a serial killer almost killed him to get back at Will, and he wonders what he feels at allowing someone to see him like this, pale, sick.

“Dr. Lecter?” he asks hesitantly. Lecter startles, eyes flying open, alarmed.

Will spreads his hands innocently on the wheel, concerned at the flash of fear in Dr. Lecter’s eyes. Perhaps Budge’s attack has left more marls than Dr. Lecter has been allowing Will to see.

“Are you sure you shouldn’t be at a hospital? Or at least see a doctor?”

Lecter frowns. “I am a doctor,” he says, and seems to want to add something, but apparently thinks better of it. Or possibly forgets what he was going to follow with, because he looks confused for a moment, a strange expression on him.

“Yes,” Will says slowly, a little freaked out. “But maybe a doctor who’s not running a fever hot enough to rival my car heater.”

Dr. Lecter lets his head fall back against the rest again, coughing lightly. “I only need rest. Water. And rest.”

“I can handle that much,” Will muttered, sighing on it, as he starts the car. “I hope you don’t mind dog hair on your clothes.”

“I like your dogs,” Dr. Lecter murmurs, eyes closed, shivering.

Despite the awful situation, something warm blossoms in Will’s chest at that admission. Dr. Lecter is a reserved man, and a very punctilious one about his own personal hygiene. To think he’d like dogs is somewhat surprising, but it’s a good surprise. Will can’t quite bring himself to think of a man as a friend who doesn’t like dogs at all. Dog are practically all that keeps Will sane. Dogs and Dr. Lecter.

And Alana Bloom. In the rare occasion he doesn’t make a complete fool out of himself around her.

Dr. Lecter dozes, shivering, on the way back to Will’s house. He’ll rouse enough to answer questions when Will asks them, but his answers are increasingly vague and he looks confused and disoriented by the landscape passing by the windows.

Will can’t help himself from asking questions. A Lecter this silent and pale is a disturbing sight and Will has the constant urge to make him talk, just to make sure he’s still alive.

He has to help him out of the car, let him lean against Will on the way into the house. Lecter still, surprisingly, manages to dredge up a smile and pat the dogs on the head as Will leads him to the bedroom. The dogs linger by the door, curious and concerned by the scent of sickness, while Will helps Lecter out of his coat and turtleneck sweater. He’s wearing an expensive button down under it that is already soaked with sweat.

“Do you have anything comfortable to wear at all?”

“Pajamas,” Lecter suggests, almost like a question, dubiously.

Will goes to the car and gets his suitcase. Everything in it is neatly and carefully folded, and Will can tell he’s messing it all up no matter how careful he tries to be, but he does eventually come across the soft cotton of dark blue pinstriped pajamas.

Dr. Lecter is curled on his side asleep when he comes back into the bedroom. Will feels terrible waking him up, but he definitely can’t stay in those dress pants and button down, not only because he’ll sweat right through them.

He tries to be gentle, but the man startles at the softest touch on his shoulder, and there’s that sickening flash of fear in his eyes again that makes Will’s stomach turn.

“It’s just me,” he says, unnecessarily, holding up the pajamas. “I brought your pajamas. Do you need me to help you?”

Dr. Lecter shakes his head, but he’s sluggish and hesitant sitting up. Will knows he should stay around and help him despite the negative, but he’s wary of infringing on the man’s privacy. Having seen this much of Dr. Lecter in this state already feels like a violation; watching him undress sounds unforgivable.

So he goes to the kitchen and gets a bottle of cold water instead. Calls Victor over in Wolf Trap to ask him to tow Dr. Lecter’s car into his garage before nightfall. He’ll go pick it up in the morning, when he feels safe and comfortable leaving Lecter alone in the certainty he won’t come back home to a cold corpse.

He immediately shakes that thought, upset at his own exaggeration, but when he comes back into the bedroom he revisits it.

Dr. Lecter’s managed to change into the pajamas, but the effort’s winded him, and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, trembling, gasping.

Wordlessly, Will rests the water bottle on the nightstand and helps him lie down on his side on the bed, covers him with the covers. He shakes out the blanket on the foot of the bed and spreads it over him, feeling oddly protective.

It’s strange, this change in dynamic—Will taking care of Hannibal instead of the other way around. Will finds he doesn’t dislike it. Doesn’t even mind it. Dr. Lecter’s been good to him, even when he’s been rude and off-putting. This is something he can do for him.

“Hey,” he says softly, crouching down next to the bed and touching Lecter’s arm. Lecter’s eyes are fever-bright and unfocused when they open, but he’s at least partially awake, Will thinks. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to know how this goes. You said you’ve been through this before?”

“The fever will break in a few hours,” Lecter says, voice low and rough like it’s been dragged through broken glass. “It will get bad before that.”

“Worse than this?” Will asks incredulously.

A glimmer of humor shines in Lecter’s dark eyes. “Much. But it will pass. What time is it now?”

Will glances at his watch. “Four in the afternoon.”

Lecter considers that for a long moment, mind sluggish with fever. “I should be peaking around midnight. That will be the worst of it.”

Will can’t at this point think of anything worse than him curled on his side looking wretched, covered in sweat, trembling, in Will’s bed.

It turns out he doesn’t need to employ his imagination. Lecter gets worse and fast. First he dozes on and off, a restless sleep full of what seems to Will, who is rather an authority on the subject, like violent nightmares. Will takes a seat by the window and learns quickly to stay in it when Hannibal startles awake, because the times he tries to soothe him or even wake him, that sickening cold fear slices into Hannibal’s eyes like a blade, and he braces himself for a violence he should know would never come from Will.

Then, for a while, he stops responding at all, going unnaturally still with his eyes open, staring straight ahead and seeing nothing. Will is even more disturbed by that vacant stare than all the fear and flinches from before, and endeavors to engage Lecter in conversation, but it’s like talking to a comatose man.

If Will moves, Lecter’s eyes track him across the room. If Will comes near, he tries lethargically to move back, out of reach. It occurs to Will that his presence might be making the whole thing worse, so he leaves the bedroom, but after merely minutes Hannibal makes an odd, wounded noise, and starts talking to him in what might have been Lithuanian, but might also have been Mandarin, for all Will understands.

“I don’t,” Will starts, and stops when Hannibal starts talking over him, rushed and pleading. “Should I—do you want me to stay?”

Hannibal pauses for a long moment, possibly parsing the word in English, and eventually nods.

“Alright. Um, you should… probably drink this,” Will says uncomfortably, handing him the water bottle. Hannibal’s hands tremble when he laboriously twists the cap. The sound he makes when he swallows the cool water might have had a very different effect on Will, if Hannibal wasn’t so pathetically sick.

Around ten pm, when Will is beginning to think Hannibal has stabilized at staring blankly ahead and shivering, the psychiatrist takes another turn for the worse and starts talking in… it sounds like a flurry of languages. He seems to be talking to Will, but not really interested in being understood. His voice is hushed and haunted, low.

Sick with concern, Will drags the chair closer and does the only thing he can think that might help. He presses a cool cloth to Hannibal’s forehead and shushes him when he speaks. He pushes his hair back from his forehead, tenderly like he vaguely remembers someone doing in his distant early childhood. He speaks when Hannibal grows quiet, wondering if it was the silence that disturbed the man.

He doesn’t have much to say. Nothing interesting. He talks about New Orleans and boats and the sea. About his dogs, and where he’s found each one. Eventually, to the sound of his nonsensical babbling, Hannibal seems to drop into a deeper sleep. Grateful, Will sits back in his chair and wishes the night would pass more or less like this, in peace.

He must fall asleep. He wakes up to the sound of something hitting the ground, and jolts to his feet when he realizes it’s Hannibal, on his hands and knees on the floor. He darts in to help him up, but the violent flinch that causes makes Hannibal’s shoulder hit the nightstand. The open water bottle tops forward. Cold water spills over Hannibal’s shoulder, soaking the fabric.

Hannibal looks terrified, so Will sits down hard on the floor and shows him his hands, palm-out, waiting for Hannibal to recognize him through the haze of what must be his fever breaking.

Hannibal has broad shoulders, but his chest is narrow and his hips even more so. He’s fit and wiry, he looks strong, like he could hold his own. Has, in fact, held his own—against Tobias Budge. Emerged from that, not unscathed, but undeniably victorious, so—what could be lurking in the shadows of his mind that could scare him like this?

It takes long moments for Hannibal’s breathing to calm. Winston wanders curiously in and licks idly at the water pooling on the floor. Hannibal watches him, eyes wide and glassy. A drop of sweat rolls slowly down his cheek from his forehead. Drips off his sharp chin and blends into the soaked cotton of his shirt.

Will waits.

Winston whines and curls on the floor, head resting on Hannibal’s thigh. Hannibal rests a hand on his back absently, stroking Winston’s soft fur with a trembling hand. Will waits, silent, unmoving. Eventually, Hannibal’s eyes glide up again, and there’s a glimmer of recognition in them that makes Will want to cry with relief.

“Will,” he says, voice shredded.

“It’s November third, two thousand thirteen,” Will says, his own throat dry and aching. “You’re in Wolf Trap, Virginia. Your name is Hannibal Lecter.”

Hannibal’s brows draw close. “Yes. I remember now. Thank you. My apologies.”

Will exhales roughly, briskly rubbing his hands up and down his face. “It’s fine. You’re better?”

“Not yet. But the worst has passed.”

Will nods shakily and gets up, offering Hannibal a hand. Hannibal lets him pull him up and tuck him back into bed without a word, and within minutes is deeply asleep. Grateful, Will stumbles to the living room and stretches out in the couch. He falls asleep almost immediately and dreams of nothing.

He is woken up an indeterminate amount of time later by a hand on his shoulder and a quiet voice.

“Yeah,” he says fuzzily, blinking his eyes open. “I’m awake.”

“A remark of debatable nature,” Hannibal replies, sounding amused.

“Too early,” Will mumbles. “Small words.”

Hannibal smiles. “I must go, Will. I have to make it to the conference.”

“You should probably duck that,” Will says more firmly, sitting up.

“I’m the speaker. I’m already late. I am well enough.”

“You still look pretty sick,” Will comments, because Hannibal does. His skin is still pale, his eyes a little too bright.

“It takes a while for an episode to fade entirely. I assure you I am well. If you could perhaps drive me to my car, I will stop disturbing your day.”

Will sighs, eyeing him doubtfully. “I can’t talk you out of this?”

“I am afraid not.”

“This is like checking yourself out against medical advice,” Will complains, nevertheless getting to his feet and finding his car keys as Hannibal wraps himself warmly up in his expensive, thick woolen coat.

“If it will assuage your concern, I will call you once I arrive at the conference,” Hannibal suggests. He hasn’t taken a shower, but he’s changed into street clothes again, and he looks a lot more like himself. Will takes a quick look into his bedroom and finds Hannibal’s taken the trouble to strip Will’s bed and replace the sheets with clean ones.

“Yes,” Will says absently, unlocking the front door. “I’d appreciate that.”

He thinks of the fear in Hannibal’s eyes when he was sick and vulnerable, the way he recoiled from touch and thought someone was going to hurt him. He feels like he knows a lot about Hannibal Lecter now, about what has happened in a long life to make this man into what he is. He isn’t sure he welcomes the knowledge, but he has it either way.

It isn’t until hours later, once he’s already heard back from Hannibal and is lying in his own bed trying to get some sleep, that it occurs to him what a staggering show of trust it is for Hannibal to have called him, of all of his acquaintances, for help. At his most vulnerable, when he must have known Will would see things he would have rather kept hidden, he had still chosen _Will_.

That sort of trust… that is heady. To have someone like Hannibal trust him with that, trust _Will_ , unreliable fickle Will, the man not even Jack completely believes in and doubts at every turn.

On his back in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, Will licks his lips and counts his own heartbeats, listens to the quite inside his own head.

There’s peace here, too, he realizes. In the link. In the trust.

He’s been keeping Hannibal t arm’s length very deliberately this far, but… perhaps he’s been mistaken. If Hannibal trusts him this much, then maybe Will’s been overcautious, too reserved. Hannibal’s given him a lot tonight; perhaps Will should give something back.

Let him in. Like Hannibal has let Will in. 


End file.
